College Giants Taken Down A Notch Again

Ed Moore

October 10, 1994|By ED MOORE Daily Press

The cult of college coach personality took a beating again on Saturday.

Bobby Bowden's own personal hell continued to be in the Orange Bowl. And Lou Holtz found himself the skinny wimp on the beach, which has to be a strange feeling when you coach ``the mythological giant of college football,'' to use the winning coach's words.

The cult of college coach personality can be a fickle thing. Fans seem to forget players block and tackle and coaches mostly eat dinner with impressionable mommies and make lots of money for being boring and unintelligible on their TV shows with a cast of one and only. Themselves.

But as much as fans love you one minute, they will threaten to kill you and your family the next, as Bill Curry experienced at Kentucky last week. The same thing happened to him at Alabama, but he's won at two places, the first Georgia Tech, and he will win at a third given the chance. Guess wackos are impatient.

The likes of Bobby and Lou keep uppity alumni and deranged wannabe alumni out of their hair by staying on top, but it's certainly a heart-wrenching ride up there.

Only Terry Bowden, 17-0 at Auburn thus far, is walking around wondering just what all the fuss in this business is about. Seems a pretty easy job to him thus far, though a visit to No. 1 Florida awaits this Saturday and he's still enjoying his ride with another man's recruits.

In January, Bobby's Florida State team was college football's national champion. It's not yet mid-October, and already Bobby's team is only the third-best team in his own state.

But at least the Bowdens, 32-2 combined in one and a half seasons, don't have to face Boston College without muscle. Poor Lou Holtz has lost the same number of games to one team, Boston College, in one and a half seasons than the two Bowdens have lost combined.

Holtz didn't lose the interfaith squabble between the Catholics and the Jesuits this time on a field goal. His Irish got manhandled, which actually is the same thing that happened to them for three quarters of 1993's game. Rookie BC coach Dan Henning said his mighty Eagles, which were helpless just three weeks ago against Virginia Tech for more than 59 minutes, beat the Irish by exploiting the biggest gap between the two teams.

What gap?

We're bigger than they are up front, Henning confessed.

So, the bully BC kicked sand in the face of the Irish. Holtz, a huge crybaby, according to Stanford coach Bill Walsh, will surely go secretly scurrying for those muscle magazines now.

The most physical we've been manhandled in a long, long time, Holtz said, not playing the crybaby now but speaking pure, unadulterated truth.

Holtz has even lost to two different BC coaches, so he can claim he's been outbrainpowered 2-1 in that span. But when his team is manhandled by a mid-level Big East team, he needs for once in his life to consider blaming himself.

Well, we're going to be back on top a lot sooner than people think, Holtz said, pounding the table for emphasis at his post-loss press conference. We trust you on that statement Lou, but a lot of people will sure enjoy your year of vacation.

Bobby has lost 13 of 19 games against Miami, and it hasn't mattered a whole lot if the opposing coach was named Schellenberger, Johnson or Erickson. And his kicker has mattered less. We're afraid much ado has been made of Scott Bentley for nothing. And Bobby can surely find no solace that many people think his son to be the better coach right now.

Paul ``Bear'' Bryant's son, Paul Jr., found a way out of all this. He went into the dog-racing business instead. Too many legends around already, he figured. Most of them undeserving.